Crossover Office 2.0 Released 293
freakyfreak2 writes "Crossover Office 2.0.0 was just released. Finally can get Office XP apps to run. Here's from the announcement. "The changes in this release are as follows:
Support was added for Photoshop 7, Access 2000, Word XP, Excel XP, and
Powerpoint XP. glibc 2.3 issues were fixed. The setup GUI was
dramatically improved. Tablet support for Photoshop was added. File
locking and file change notification support were added. Scripts were
added so that the technically inclined can have Windows applications
open specific file types using Unix applications, for instance,
opening PDF fies with the Unix Acrobat Reader. Many other cleanups
and bug fixes were made. "
Here's the homepage and here's the change log. I'm still waiting on getting Dreamweaver MX to run."
Don't like the name. (Score:3, Funny)
"Crossover Office" sounds like a building full of transvestites.
Re:Don't like the name. (Score:2, Funny)
Funny -- I've had similar thoughts about "transgaming". Maybe WINE is optimised for transvestites.
Re:Don't like the name. (Score:2)
Thats funny. Imagine the faces and dresses and office politics and wasted time and sex behind the desk.. Whats Bill Gates doing there? Oh its Microsoft.
Clean out your head! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Don't like the name. (Score:2, Informative)
Chan
"Support"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"Support"? (Score:5, Informative)
For instance, Photoshop 7 doesn't run under current versions of WINE, WineX, or CrossOver Office 1.2. I'm happy about this.
Re:"Support"? (Score:4, Informative)
Basically, it's your second idea. They're claiming to have fixed up Wine so it will run particular apps. They make no claims about other apps that may or may not run.
Re:"Support"? (Score:2)
What's with the links? (Score:5, Interesting)
<conspiracy>
OSDN is keeping track of our clicking habits
</conspiracy>
nice, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:nice, but... (Score:2)
Not to mention paying for MS Office itself. And funding the development of future anti-interoperability features.
Interoperable? (Score:2)
You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called Windows.
I always thought that WINE was a stopgap, a thing to tide you over until your users were comfortable with OpenOffice or whatever. Now we can run tomorrow's Windows apps today. I can't seem to shake the idea that by running Windows apps on Linux waters down the latter and strengthens the former.
Re:You know... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You know... (Score:2)
Re:You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
The analogy is MacOS X (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The analogy is MacOS X (Score:5, Insightful)
Many apps now won't run on OS9, with good reason; either they're hybrid Carbon apps (meaning they use elements of Carbon, but also take advantage of OS X-isms) or Cocoa apps (for which no runtime exists on OS9). However, a quick glance at my Dock (and Fruitmenu) shows way too many apps that still run on OS9 via Carbonlib.
OS X is coming up on it's 4th major release, and still has plenty of warts, but EVERY TIME a developer keeps their "works on OS X and OS8.6+ w/ Carbonlib" alive, they're forcing Apple and the Apple userbase to deal with a world we generally don't want.
It's kind of the same with WINE. I used Linux exclusively for years. Some users I knew, they liked a couple Windows apps here and there. Forte's Agent, for example, was a "must have" for many of them. I'd say, Pan is really good, and uses Agent as inpiration. For years, it was never quite right for them; Agent was "done" and did everything they wanted. Rather than help out Pan, they ran WINE to run Agent (and a few other apps).
Pan lost out on a number of smart, capable users, potentially hindering its growth. Windows, on the other hand, retained users (even if it was via compatibility DLLs and whatnot).
You might say, "It's only a couple of users; Linux can survive that". Maybe, maybe not. I think that when users cling to applications like that, it hurts Linux. Just like people who start Classic on login hurts adoption of Cocoa.
Re:The analogy is MacOS X (Score:2)
Re:You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be ignoring the fact that Wine does a lot more than MS Office. What about all that custom business software that there is so much of? No free replacement for them.
The idea that being able to run more applications than another platform "weakens" it is a position I can't understand. The purpose of an OS is to run applications, not to try and force users to run "pure" apps.
I also don't really understand why people seem to think that Linux native software is better than Windows software under emulation. If the integration is there, who cares what APIs it uses?
Uh... it's NOT emulation! (Score:3, Informative)
And it is not emulation -- it is an alternate API implentation. WINE on x86 requires no virtualization or emulation of machine instructions. WINE loads the EXEs directly into RAM and locates the various DLLs so that the machine can properly run the Windoze program. This is not emulation.
Re:Uh... it's NOT emulation! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You know... (Score:3, Insightful)
With Linux I was just lucky or something, because it never EVER hangs, and never gives me trouble (witched to gentoo recently b
Re:You know... (Score:2)
I agree. Look at where Linux is superior: it's where M$ is chasing Unix. Apache, Security, etc.
As far as desktops go, change is good, variety is good.
Re:You know... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Less security issues. Provided I set up cxoffice/Wine correctly, any "damage" a rogue Windows app might do can be contained very easily. At worst, it will affect the "Windows" stuff, but it won't affect the Linux data. While I occasionally need Outlook to perform some tasks, I usually use native mail readers, so the risk of "some virus" or "some rogue piece of code" coming in is very minimal.
2. Apps that will never have a Linux equivelant. One application I currently rely on for work has effectively been discontinued as a result of M&As, so the chance of seeing a Linux equivelant is zero squared. However, with a little coaxing, it runs just beautifully under cxoffice.
3. Choice. Because I can run my critical business apps under an alternate OS, I am now no longer "locked" into a particular OS choice. I frequently switch between my Linux box and my Win2k box and I can do most of my basic work tasks in either platform.
-- PhoneBoy
Re:You know... (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. Wine on Linux strengthens Linux in a number of ways. Quite apart from the fact that there are plenty of users who need or want those Windows applications without rebooting, the mere difficulty of Wine development is a positive
Re:You know... (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I highly dislike the Linux software options. For example, OpenOffice is slow as hell to load (takes damn near two minutes to load while MS Office under wine takes 10 seconds) and eats a lot of memory. It doesn't support many Word features. It is buggy
Dreamweaver (Score:5, Funny)
Why? So you can have huge chunks of javacript that sucks embedded into every single page? Or perhaps you want your HTML to look like it was laid out by a deranged monkey?
TWW
Re:Dreamweaver (Score:3, Informative)
I love Dreamweaver 4. It is the best. I must admit, Dreamweaver MX is not an improvement; the idea was cool. "Hey, look, Homesite and Dreamweaver, all in one!!" I really like Homesite, since it was very much like Bluefish (hey, I use bluefish so...), but when they put it in Dreamweaver, I feel it wasn't as good as it could have been.
My experiences with dreamweaver have been nice (i.e. Tables...PHEW, so much easier than by hand!), I haven'
Re:Dreamweaver (Score:2)
Re:Dreamweaver (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Dreamweaver (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dreamweaver (Score:2)
Anyways
Re:Dreamweaver (Score:2)
I currently use HomeSite 4.5.1 for all of my HTML and PHP coding (combined with "vi" and - sometimes - "Eclipse").
Does Dreamweaver allow me to add a bunch of
RedHat 9 (Score:2, Redundant)
Photoshop you say? (Score:3, Interesting)
(and yes, I know about gimp, and yes, I know about OSX and photoshop)
Re:Photoshop you say? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Photoshop you say? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Photoshop you say? (Score:5, Funny)
God forbid people get to run the programs they like and make their computer look and act like they want.
How DARE they!
this is key to linux adoption (Score:4, Insightful)
the problem that linux desktop adoption has is not quality nor quantity. there are plenty of both. there is always that one app that can't be replaced. microsoft's hold on the desktop is tenuous at best. they do know this. why else all the EULA fuss over foxpro. they have traction, but they don't have momentum. they have a base that HAS TO use their products, but many don't necessarily choose to. this gives businesses one less reson to not look into linux.
Better Windows than Windows... (Score:2, Interesting)
... removed all incentive for developers to create OS/2 native applications.
Better Windows than Windows... (Score:2)
Where is my moderation points when I need them ?
Re:this is key to linux adoption (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, this shows how clueless the open source community really is when it comes to business. This is a product that lets you do the same things you are already doing, so what is the incentive to change? It is most certainly not going to work exactly like it does in Windows, and that is a pretty big risk when making a major decision. I can only imagine that this was made to "save money" for people adopting Linux. Truth is, this onl
Re:this is key to linux adoption (Score:2)
Example: I'm running a big honkin' calculation in Excel or a huge query in Access on my workstation. It's CPU-intensive, and it'll take 30-60 minutes to complete. (Anyone with a real-world example, please speak up.) I'd be pretty miffed if reading email in MS Lookout caused the machine to go tits-up. Also, I'd wager that Linux's newer schedulers would make running these
Bitch Moan Whine (Score:4, Insightful)
The GIMP is nice, but it isn't Photoshop. Also, the Crossover office tools are wonderful for those of us in Windows shop who need Outlook, but run Linux boxes for development and just cause we can.
Re:Bitch Moan Whine (Score:2)
Do you have any links to back this up? I didn't think they had taken an official stand on this...
Re:Bitch Moan Whine (Score:2)
Re:Bitch Moan Whine (Score:2)
and a link
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,5543,0
Re:Bitch Moan Whine (Score:2)
Meanwhile they crossed to Qt widget library, so porting to anything would be very easy. Taking that to consideration I really don't see other reason to use Qt instead of their own.
Re:Bitch Moan Whine (Score:2)
can get office working without crossover (Score:5, Informative)
Re:can get office working without crossover (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:why would you want crossover office? (Score:2)
As much as I dislike Microsoft, I don't think that they owe me a copy of their software. Neither does Codeweavers.
Re:why would you want crossover office? (Score:2)
Many companies have thousands of legacy documents that were created using MS Office. They have already paid the MS tax. Maybe OpenOffice will work with all these docs, but if you were the CEO would you want to take the risk?
Re:why would you want crossover office? (Score:2)
Employees were literally unable to exchange documents with clients. Inflexibility is bad.
One step closer (Score:2)
However I don't see this happening. Coporates want to be be able to pay for support. They want SLA's. telephone hotlines. Mind you for us home users this is nice
Rus
meanwhile, in the Redmond legal office... (Score:5, Funny)
Trial version? (Score:2)
So, we are trying to run it on our linux box with wine. Although the setup goes ok, running the program kinda borks. Trying to do this in Suse 8.1. I know it uses some kind of DB program but I am not very familiar with it at all.
We are trying vmware for it -- but we cant run vmware in VNC so that may be worthless (
You can run VMWare over VNC. (Score:2)
Re:Trial version? (Score:2)
Important for the Future of Desktop Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Many Linux advocates just don't get it. On the desktop, Linux is simply not going to move beyond being a niche environment until it becomes easy for average people to use the Apps that they today. Crossover Office has great potential as a tool to help accomplish this.
Could someone at /. do some editing please. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Could someone at /. do some editing please. (Score:2)
How about "Philadendron 9.4, which lets you cross-compile Python into TCL/Cobol, was just released!"
Of course, this article did imply that Crossover Office let you run Windows apps, so I'm not talking about this article
Dreamweaver MX does work under Crossover Office (Score:4, Informative)
You just need to add a simple script that gets over the "required resources" warning by moving the user into the same directory as the executable before running it.
At least, it works for me. I do database hookups, PHP coding, etc.
Re:Dreamweaver MX ...on linux WHY ? (Score:2, Informative)
So.. where can i download it ? :) (Score:3, Insightful)
Or is there to be a delay before the functionality is offered to us people that cant afford it for just personal use.
Best ever name for a product (Score:2)
Codeweavers calls the product "Crossover" That is exactly what it's supposed to be used for; crossing over to Linux. You maintain your comfort level with applications you already know, and when the time comes to upgrade, thus requiring you learn something new, you can consider upgrading to an open solution (OpenOffice.org, Koffice, Abiword, Gnumeric, insert favorite open source application here). Crossover is a safety blanket for those leaving the Windows world until they get used to Linux. If anything, thi
Internet Explorer? (Score:2)
As a webmaster, I spend a lot of time switching from Linux to Windows just to check what my pages are looking like under IE 6.
Why it matters... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I know that OO.o has some sort of database support, but many companies have invested in extensive custom apps in Access, and rewriting these using OO.o's feature-poor database tool is a non-starter.
And yes, I know that Access has a lousy native database, and that postgresql/mysql/firebirdsql can slice & dice those fries for you... or gnoda, or rekall... but serious Access apps have backends in Sql Server or Oracle or some real database. And it's still much cheaper & simpler to buy Crossover office & run the existing app than to rewrite everything (especially if your mickey geeks don't know python or tcl).
I do have hopes that eventually mono will provide a seamless way to port MS Access apps to a native linux app -- and I hope someone on the mono team is working on an application porter for Access apps -- but in the meanwhile Crossover Office is a huge step forward. There really isn't a good replacement for Access on linux yet. Really. But thanks to codeweavers, it's actually possible despite that lack to ditch Windows, switch to OO.o for word processing & spreadsheets, evolution for email,, etc, and run that legacy Access app too.
Mock if you will, trolls, but this is a watershed moment for linux. This frees many companies who are tied to Access but hate Microsoft. It'll be cheaper for IT departments to hang onto their Office 2000 licenses & port the desktop to linux than to upgrade to XP & licensing 6. Then they can migrate the applications at their leisure.
A suggested use for Crossover Offfice (Score:4, Interesting)
One really cool use would be a web-server based file translator from Microsoft Word format to other formats (say, .rtf) using Microsoft Word as the engine to do the translation. It could filter your email, and automatically translate those Microsoft Office documents into something readable. Perhaps it could even brute force some files (power point, for example) into screen captured graphics files.
But using the actual Microsoft software to do the translation would ensure that at least the file was read in correctly.
That way you'd only need one copy of office for an entire office.
Office updates? (Score:2)
http://office.microsoft.com/ProductUpdates/default .aspx [microsoft.com]
CodeWeavers have contributed a lot to the WINE project. However, have they commited to releasing Crossover as source within a reasonable time frame? Compare how Aladdin handled Ghostscript dual-license releases in the early days of development.
Still no Lotus Notes 6 (Score:2)
It sure would be useful to me if it would support Lotus Notes 6.
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Interesting)
Only vaguely, in as much as it's WINE related. Crossover produce a very good product though, and I'd love to see them succeed. Also, unlike TransGaming, they contribute all their changes back into the main WINE tree, thus earning them huge kudos as good citizens of the open source community.
Re:Excellent. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now all we need is a good WINE fork specialising in MIDI and audio work.
Re:Excellent. (Score:4, Informative)
I strongly disagree. There were two big hurdles to getting VFP working. First was a mouse click bug. Duane Clark (IIRC, can't seem to reach the arcives) fixed that. The second was file locking. File locking is a BIG issue for any program that wants to be multi-user friendly (such as FoxPro or Access). Alexandre Julliard did that work, and is DIRECTLY related to Codeweavers being able to say they support MS Access.
Re:Excellent. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not very sure it's a good thing that Microsoft's applications run under a Linux operating system. This might increase the use of MS's closed document formats (doc, xls,...) by Linux users.
I think that alternative office environments, like OpenOffice.org [openoffice.org], are far more important. These apps import MS documents without a lot of trouble, and save the documents by default in a documented file format.
If only more people knew about (and trusted) the cheap alternatives for MS Office, then the number
Re:Excellent. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Excellent. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Excellent. (Score:2)
That and Project isn't supported.
Re:DUPE! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Or... (Score:3, Funny)
I can buy proprietary Crossover Office, which let's me buy proprietary Office XP and run it on my otherwise open computer (Oh, and I still have to register/authenticate/indoctrinate/whatever Office XP or it won't work).
OR
I can run Open Office.
Tough choice.
Re:Or... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Or... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Or... (Score:2)
OpenOffice rarely converts them properly.
But for everything I create I use OO.
Re:Or... (Score:2, Funny)
Boy. YOu should be a spokesperson for Open Source. You have such an elegant way of insulting people you should be educating.
Easy answer.. ACCESS (Score:3, Insightful)
While it may not be the best choice in the world, a LOT of things in business rely on MS Access.
Because OO is horrible, as is(was?) Xoveroffice (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I won't touch anything with the letters "XP" voluntarily, but if I might substitute Office 2000, then it's simply because, overall, it's better than OO *now*. No, this isn't a flame or a troll...simply the result of struggling and fighting with OO for months before deciding that it gave me more headaches than MS.
To disclose, I'm not a Stallman disciple - I would prefer an Open alternative, but really I'm going to use the best tool for the job. Right now (and yes, I'm obviously talking 1.0) OO isn't it. Open anything reasonably complicated (things embedded, complicated formatting, etc) and OO pukes. The UI is a joke, even compared to MS, and that's hard to do. Opening ASCII datafiles is a pain in the ass. It's way too bloated (easily rivals if not beats MSOffice), and actually too integrated for it's own good. I could go on...
Now, I would rather have Office running on linux than on a separate box (I can't dual boot my linux box, I use it as a server too). I tried xoveroffice 1.0, and found it to be exceptionally buggy. Things would occasionally hang, and worse, sometimes the hanging would necessitate a complete reinstall of xover. Not good! Then I tried vmware, and had some issues there too (it doesn't like slackware's startup scripts, so I had issues getting modules to restart on reboot).
So far, my solution is to avoid Offices of all kinds. I use Matlab for my data analysis, and I do as much in that as possible to avoid excel. I can do a lot in that, but I would like a decent spreadsheet too, and one that doesn't hang at inopportune times.
So, bottom line, 1) OO is a mess, and 2) I haven't found a great way to run MS Office on linux yet. So, at the office, we have a linux box, a mac(OSX), and a windows box. Between them, at least one does any job reasonably.
Re:Because OO is horrible, as is(was?) Xoveroffice (Score:2)
Re:Because OO is horrible, as is(was?) Xoveroffice (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Or... (Score:4, Interesting)
I saw a project once (can't find it now or remember the name of it) which was a script that goes on a Windows server.. you email it a doc file and it automatically converts it to some other format using MS Word and sends it back to you. Since that would obviously handle any .doc, it would sure be nice if someone would set up a publically accessible server that does that.
Re:Or... (Score:2)
Valid reason?
This is a review??? (Score:2)
Re:This is a review??? (Score:2)
Re:This is a review??? (Score:2)
Re:Annoying splash pages (Score:2, Funny)
What in the world are you talking about?
I bought Crossover Office about a year or so ago (and have been updating it of course). Are you instead refering to the *FREE* plugin so you can watch quicktime stuff or whatever in Konq/Mozzie/whatever? You mean that one that they are handing out their work for free? The one that guys/gals/etc. are trying like hell to feed their families and are still handing
Re:Annoying splash pages (Score:5, Funny)
In a strange ironic twist, those go away when you do pay..
Re:Verbs? (Score:2)
Hehe. Well, I wouldn't take me very seriously. As another poster pointed out, it wasn't the verb, it was the subject. So it looks like I'm the one that needs to work on my english skills... :)
neurostarRe:What's de deal with the GPL??? (Score:2, Informative)
Doesn't Crossover Office use Wine?
Yes.
Isn't Wine GPL?
No. It's LGPL.
Then, how come Wine still struggles to run the same apps?
It does? Takes some work to get them installed, but it works pretty much the same as Crossover after that.
I should be able to download their source code, shouldn't I?
You can. At least the changes to wine. Here. [winehq.org]
Can I do this? I'd like to use their improvements made to Wine, as stated in the GPL and run it for free.
After all, t